Monday, July 28, 2008

It Came A Little Sooner Than Expected, And Confused


I wasn't expecting this day for another 14 years, but Adam got his mission call today! He is so super excited! He will be going to Bolivia, and reports on Saturday!

(Well, not really. It's actually just for a Primary Activity on Saturday. But, to him, he is a missionary now. He was very disappointed to learn he actually wouldn't be flying on an airplane to a different country, though.) :)


It should be a lot of fun. It's his first Primary Activity day ever because they didn't do them in our last ward, and in Flagstaff, the one that we were there for, got cancelled due to snow or something.

He's very much looking forward to it. I'll post the details after it happens.

New topic (FYI, there's some TMI moments below. You've been warned. :) )

On Friday, Grace was eating some peanuts, and started to choke on them. She was fine after a second, but kept coughing and was wheezing. I was pretty worried about her, and remembered that whenever I choke on anything, it always brings on an asthma attack. So, I began thinking maybe she has asthma, and the choking just brought it on all of a sudden? The doctor was closed (of course) and Mike was at work, and I wasn't sure what to do. She calmed down after about 15 minutes, though, and I figured it was just a random thing. Then, Friday night and Saturday night, she continued breathing weird. Really fast and it seemed like she was making an effort. I called the doctor, the nurse said it was up to me, and then called the urgent care, where I was told it was a 4 hour wait. Minimum. I really, really didn't want to make her wait for 4 hours, so I asked Mike to give her a blessing, and she started breathing normally and went to sleep.

She woke up Sunday morning really struggling, so I brought her to the urgent care that afternoon. The doctor said she has "Reactive Airway Disease (RAD)", probably a reaction to choking on the peanuts. Basically, her airways inflamed and filled with mucus, a reaction to "protect" her body when she began choking. He gave her a few breathing treatments, and when her oxygen got above 90, sent us home (when we went in, it was in the 80s). He told us she needed to work out the mucus that her lungs had developed, and then she'd be breathing normally again (she was still breathing really fast). He gave us a prescription to help her cough.

I went home to see which pharmacies our insurance covered that were still open (it was late), and did some research on the medication while I was at it, and learned that he had prescribed her a cough suppressant. Which completely confused me, because she needs to cough to work out the mucus, right? Suppressing it is not going to do too much good. Does that make sense? I was confused, and she was exhausted (see pic below... that was her 10 minutes after we got home). So, I decided to wait and go to the doctor in the morning.


Mike woke up at 5 this morning, and found her in the hallway gasping for breath (so glad he happened to wake up) and with a 103 degree fever. I sat her up and hit her on the back a bit (to loosen the phlegm), and she started coughing and throwing up. I gave her some ibuprofen, and then she was... fine. Still breathing a little fast. But no wheezing. She's continued to cough throughout the day, but has been completely back to normal. For her, anyways. Which means messes and craziness and a happy personality (and making that completely weird face in the pic below). This afternoon her breathing slowed completely, and she's been 100% fine. So strange.


So... not sure what to do. Does she have asthma? Does she have RAD (after doing some research on that, it seems not, so I'm even more confused)? What was with the fever?

I know I need to bring her to the doctor to get some answers, but my thing with doctors is that as soon as we walk into a doctor's office, 99.9% of the time, my kids are miraculously cured. It must be something in the air. Or maybe it's just the chance to play with strange and dirty toys. I don't know. If she has no symptoms, what's the doctor going to do? I also don't want to wait for her to get symptoms again, and get to the point that if she does have asthma, and has an attack, then she can't breathe at all.

Not that anyone who reads this blog is a doctor (or maybe you are), but any suggestions?

3 comments:

Grammy Suzzy said...

What a true blessing that Mike got up and found her! I am so glad she is better. Fever is an indication the body is trying to fight something. I think you should get one of those 50 cent draft books at walmart and start keeping a log...Nothing too anal retentive, mind you...but just daily little notations. It will help a doctor see you are not hysterical and show you any patterns. Congrats to Adam on his mission call, too!!

Danyel said...

The thing with the doctors office is the have michines that put more oxygen into the air and when your body has a lot of oxygen you feel better. sorry no other sugestion. Hope that everything works out.

Casey and Brynn said...

That is really scary about your daughter! Being a mother can be so terrifying!